This is a difficult conversation to have. Brian Thompson’s passing is a loss. First and foremost to his family, friends, and colleagues who knew him personally.
No matter your thoughts on the current healthcare landscape, the loss of a life is always unfortunate and is always something to be met with respect. It would be easier to say nothing, to avoid the discomfort, to move on. But avoiding the conversation won’t change the reality of what this moment means for healthcare.
His sudden passing didn’t just force a leadership shakeup at UnitedHealthcare – it sent shockwaves through the entire industry and marked a shift in the tone of payor-provider relationships. Thompson was known for his strategic, yet delicate and data-driven balancing act, prioritizing payor interests while meeting provider demands.
UnitedHealthcare, as led by Thompson, played a key role in shaping reimbursement structures and patient access. With his loss, both sides are adjusting to a new, uncertain landscape and recognizing increased public pressure for improved administrative processes that prioritize patient care.
The court of public opinion was far less forgiving toward Thompson’s passing. In the melee of finding the culprit and other insurance providers fearing their safety, individuals spurned by healthcare unleashed years of pent-up anger toward insurers. Social media flooded with personal stories: denials, delays, and prior authorization nightmares that turned already challenging personal/medical scenarios into financial disasters, too. People shared how insurers made their hardest moments even harder, fighting for coverage while caring for sick loved ones, being blindsided by massive bills, or being forced to jump through endless hoops just to get the care they paid their premiums and deductibles to receive. The outrage may have died down, but the frustration hasn’t.
For providers, this is a rare moment to bring the public into the conversation and shed light on just how broken the system really is.
Hospitals and health systems have been financially squeezed long before COVID, and unfortunately, most have been relatively unsuccessful in telling that story to their communities. Providers have faced years of tightening reimbursement rates, an endless stream of denials, and countless hoops to jump through just to get paid. Providers should work to end the terrible trends of for-profit health insurance companies prioritizing their profits over patients’ wellbeing.
How providers approach this moment matters. What happens now could set the tone for years of negotiations to come.
The path forward has to include reclaiming the narrative – including providers’ own role in the rising cost of care. There has long been a sense that if a health system speaks out about their experience working with a payor, that payor will retaliate via increased delays, administrative burdens, or even make negotiating the next contract near-impossible.
But here’s the thing. Payors don’t need an excuse to do those things. They’re already doing them. Overwhelmingly, without pushback. Something has to change.
The time is now for providers to better articulate what is at stake for their organizations, and for the state of healthcare overall. When insurers stall payments or force unnecessary prior authorizations, it’s not just paperwork—it’s real people waiting for care. It’s patients facing treatment delays that could make their conditions worse. It’s rural hospitals on the brink of closure – which doesn’t just create an access issue, but a real economic one, too, for hundreds or thousands of workers suddenly out of a job. It’s families drowning in medical debt because coverage was denied. This is the reality providers are dealing with every day, meanwhile for-profit health insurance companies are diving into their vaults of coins.
It won’t be easy. Payors are rethinking their playbooks as a result of increased scrutiny brought on by Thompson’s death. With regulators watching and public trust eroding, insurers are under pressure to appear more transparent and more flexible. Some industry experts think Thompson’s passing could accelerate a shift toward value-based care, where insurers and providers actually share financial risk and align incentives for better patient outcomes. But let’s be real, whether this turns into meaningful change remains to be seen.
One thing is clear: this moment is a reset. Thompson’s passing peeled back the curtain on the deep frustration toward insurers. The question now is whether this shift leads to real reform or just a brief pause before business as usual. Providers have a rare opportunity to change the conversation, to push for fairer contracts, more transparency, and a system that doesn’t leave patients caught in the middle.
If they play it right, this could be the moment where negotiations start to shift toward something better. If they don’t, insurers will keep doing what they’ve always done: tightening the purse strings, dodging accountability, and leaving patients to suffer the consequences.
Now is the time to make sure that doesn’t happen.
